Thursday, 14 February 2013

Nuno Felted White Scarf

This is a nuno felted scarf which I made using silk organza fabric, merino wool, silk and lace. When you 'nuno' felt you encourage the wool to make it's way through a layer of fabric in order that the two bond to create one whole. This was a bit of an experiment to see how I might be able to incorporate lace into a piece - so I laid the silk organza down with pieces of lace over that, then laid a layer of shining beautiful creamy-white silk with a layer of merino/silk mix (50/50) so overall a huge amount of silk in this. The difficulty was trying to get the lace to bond to the wool and form a close fit between the fabric and the wool - there are areas where I have managed to get the three (fabric, lace, wool/silk) to bond very well, and other areas where I've not managed this - and I like both - the complete bonding looks very neat - on the other hand, the areas where this hasn't happened, the lace sits inside a little pocket which has been formed between the fabric and the wool - quite interesting - this was a reflection on how much effort I put into working on the bond, and clearly in some areas, I didn't work as hard as others. Once I'd got as much bonding as I felt I could, I threw the scarf down onto my work surface, hard and repeatedly (wonderful for working off any grumpiness or bad temper!) and this created a wrinkled effect where the wool shrunk against the silk fabric. I love this piece. And I'm keeping it.